The disputed jewellery comprises three sets, with rubies and emeralds among the stones, alongside sapphires. The court order described them as the most valuable items among those seized. They were found in a safe at Zapatero’s office during a search on 19 May 2026, as part of the broader Plus Ultra investigation. On 27 October 2026, Judge José Luis Calama of Spain’s National Court rejected a request to ask Saudi authorities to confirm that the pieces were a gift.
The ruling says Zapatero claims the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, gave him the jewellery during an official visit to Spain in June 2007, when he was prime minister. He says he accepted it as a personal courtesy and kept it privately with family jewellery and other gifts, without using it or knowing its value. A separate appraisal cited in coverage valued the three sets at approximately €1.02 million, although the final expert valuation remains outstanding.
There is no proof of the correspondence he says he sent. According to the order, Zapatero claimed to have sent two communications through the Saudi Embassy in Madrid to the Royal Court’s Protocol Office, seeking official confirmation. He has provided no evidence that the letters were submitted or sent.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office also opposed the request, citing the lack of proof that the letters were presented at the embassy. It argued that the alleged gift was delivered at the Palacio de la Moncloa and that the monarch said to have given it has died. The judge said the account lacked objective external corroboration and adequate support in the case file. The request, he added, did not show that Saudi judicial assistance would serve a useful or necessary purpose in the case. Calama characterized the proposed inquiry as an attempt to build evidentiary support for an assertion rather than to test an account already supported by objective corroboration.
The court also pointed to a difference in how gifts from the visit were handled. Some institutional gifts were documented as having been incorporated into public property, which the judge said sat uneasily with Zapatero’s account that the jewellery was kept privately. The order also referred to other Saudi gifts from 2007 that Zapatero reportedly transferred to Patrimonio Nacional, including a watch containing emeralds.
The order further notes that the Código de Buen Gobierno was approved under Zapatero’s presidency by a Council of Ministers agreement dated 18.02.2005. It required institutionally significant gifts received by senior public officials to become public property. The judge said this indicated that Zapatero knew the rules applying to such items.
A separate report on the inquiry covered a second appraisal that valued the seized pieces at €1.02 million in an earlier jewellery valuation. Calama’s ruling focuses on the lack of evidence that Zapatero sought official confirmation from Saudi Arabia. It does not determine ownership of the jewellery or whether an offence was committed.
